myriad
Americannoun
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myriads
plural
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a very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things.
-
ten thousand.
adjective
noun
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(also used in plural) a large indefinite number
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archaic ten thousand
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of myriad
First recorded in 1545–55; from Greek mȳriad-, stem of mȳriás “ten thousand,” from mȳríos “countless”
Explanation
A myriad is a lot of something. If you’re talking about Ancient Greece, a myriad is ten thousand, but today you can use the word in myriad other ways. Myriad comes from the Greek myrioi, the word for ten thousand, or less specifically, a countless amount. Myriad can be a noun, like a myriad of choices, or an adjective, like when you study myriad subjects in college. If you lift a rock you might find a myriad of bugs. Sticklers often look down their noses at using myriad as a noun, but that usage came first.
Vocabulary lists containing myriad
Lord of the Flies
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Grade 10, List 2
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The Old Man and the Sea
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Their myriad uniform combinations have been a hit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2026
In 2025, the US stepped up diplomatic pressure on Nigeria, accusing it of not doing enough to protect Christians amid the country's myriad armed conflicts.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
Overall, Shamrell said the second quarter marked stronger savings trends as Americans gradually learn more about retirement through different media outlets, personal-finance influencers, podcasts and myriad other information sources.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
For myriad reasons, including access-to-justice gaps in rural America, more pathways to the legal profession are needed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
I looked away, suddenly conscious of my myriad insufficiencies.
From "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
“Beyond healthcare, this fusion of nanotechnology and cells can lead to unique living hybrid robots, opening up myriads of interesting applications.”
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2023
Stacking one’s few belongings in a safe place, trying to understand what is yelled in German, Russian, Ukrainian, looking into myriads of unknown faces, worried faces, some smiling faces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2022
"Above all I want to thank those myriads of unassuming folk who have shown what love in action can achieve."
From BBC ● Dec. 24, 2021
Indeed, one way to approach quantum gravity is to aim to derive the Einstein equations, which are the laws general relativity applies to spacetime, from the laws of thermodynamics, applied to myriads of elementary events.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 4, 2019
He simply started over at a myriad myriads, setting 100,000,000 equal to one, and counting again, calling these new numbers, numbers of the second order.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
